


The Letter

by Dryad



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 12:58:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9182830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dryad/pseuds/Dryad
Summary: Dear John -





	

**Author's Note:**

> No spoilers for S4, but I hope you've seen S3.

She started the letter out in the usual fashion;

_Dear John -_

Dear _god_ , more like. Mary sat back in the chair and folded her arms across her chest. Apart from the ticking of the clock in the kitchen, and the hum of the refrigerator as the ice-maker came on, the flat was quiet. She stared at the cork board on the wall, looking over the pictures with a formal eye. That woman there on the rocky outcropping, the wine dark Adriatic sea behind her. That woman wavering off balance with one foot in the air, wide-eyed and gawping while her laughing girlfriends reached out to her, that woman was her, more than one lifetime ago. And there, a printed selfie of herself and John, crowded close and grinning, the edge of a pint glass blurred at the bottom of the screen. A postcard featuring St. Paul, a 'Wish You Were Here' she'd picked up on a whim at the visitor's center in Grand Portage. A folded serviette from the wedding. A cheap little Chinese style red satin purse, a gift for the child she had once been. The contents were well fondled; a heavy silver U.S. Trade dollar, a quilting safety pin strung with beads that read I LOVE U, a bullet casing, a quartz pebble that, if turned just so, resembled a glittering seated Buddha. Small pieces of her life, reminders of who she was and where she had come from and why she did the things she did.

But none of those helped her write The Letter. Capitalized, because that's how she thought of this task. It wasn't that she didn't want to write The Letter so much as that she hated explaining herself. It was her duty to provide explanations, it was her job. Part of the job. Not _her_ job, necessarily. Unless she was called back to it, of course, because that was how these things worked. No one ever truly retired, not really. Just look at her, working in an office, to all intents and purposes an ordinary girl with an ordinary job and an ordinary husband who just happened to have an extraordinary friend. She came home and made dinner and breakfast and lunch and went out to the pub and the gym and the illegal gun ranges because she made people share their spaces with her. She cultivated friends, mostly of the female variety, even though she wasn't particularly a girly girl, but it helped to have friends of that nature, who were loyal without just cause, who would defend her when the questions came, who would look at the questioner with furrowed brows and ask Why? Mary's a nice girl, a lovely girl, she would never do anything bad like that!

Mary rolled the pen back and forth a little, then took it up again.

_Dear Sherlock -_

No, he wouldn't do, either. She crossed the name out, then crumpled the page and flung it into the waste paper basket with fury. There really was only one person to whom she could write this. To whom she _would_ write.

_Mycroft -_

_I'm writing to you, as someone should know, if you don't already. There's only one other person who would understand, and he mustn't know, not yet, maybe not ever. To that end, I ask you leave this with your personal effects, so it will be found and read upon your death. Not that I have any plans, should you be wondering._

_I'm assuming you've already read my file, so you know the hows, if not the whys and wherefores and whatnot. Feel like I've been around posh government types for so long I've picked up your habit of speech. See what I mean?_

_Being Sherlock's big brother..._

Mary paused. This was coming out all wrong. She sounded like an idiot, explaining things Mycroft probably already knew. Of course he'd read her file, of course he would know who she was, of course, of course, of course. 

She scrubbed her face with both hands and then got up to make a cup of tea. This wasn't Doctor Who, tea wasn't going to solve everything, but maybe it would make her feel a little better. She liked the taste, anyway.

God, this kitchen, this house, their bloody car that John refused to learn how to drive. It wasn't that he didn't know how, precisely, it was that he just didn't want to do it. It boggled her mind a little. He was a talented man in the art of war, just as she was, so why wouldn't he want to use any tool to its full advantage as well? It was a mystery she mostly managed to forget for the sake of her sanity, but there was going to come a time when she would need him to drive, and she couldn't get over how stubborn he was about it.

The brief flush of anger faded. Another ruse to keep her from being honest. And with Mycroft, of all people. What a joke. Hands wrapped around her too hot mug, she shook her head and snorted. What a joke, indeed. A joke on her, haha!

The view through the kitchen window was pleasant enough. A patch of back yard, the Japanese maple tree with pointy leaves, the water feature as designed by someone who imagined they understood Zen, the wide graveled edge between concrete patio paving and the garden indication of the house's previous owner's predilection towards the same. Too bad she couldn't be zen about this bloody letter. An irritation she couldn't scratch, the mere fact she was compelled to write an annoyance she couldn't shake off, either. She'd killed men and felt nothing, so why was this so damned difficult?

Abruptly sick of herself, Mary stalked back to the desk and sat down, taking up the pen with writing with fierce, un-ignorable strokes.

_Mycroft -_

_We both know that Sherlock is both my greatest rival and most important ally in protecting John Watson. I shot him to warn him away. I could have killed him, there isn't a person among us who doesn't understand that, except for maybe John, whose willful blindness will get him in to trouble one day or another._

_It's for this reason I want you to keep this letter where it will be found upon your death._

_Not that I'm making any threats. Or promises._

_What I want is for someone to know, in the event of my early death, the reasons for what I did._

_When I was little, my Mama told me I wasn't like the other children, and that was alright. She said I could use that to my advantage, and that I should never be ashamed of who I was. She was wrong, of course. I'm sure your parents must have told you and Sherlock something similar. Anyway. I want you to make sure they're all right, when I go. My former employ was not the kind people retire from, not for long, anyway. They either find trouble in the shape of other people, or trouble finds them at the end of a gun, usually their own when they realize exactly what they've done. I'm not going to do that, by the way, no matter how much you might wish it._

_As I said, Sherlock is my greatest rival for John's affections, but he is also the one person in this world who can protect John as well as myself. I both hate and love him for it._

_I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I don't even understand what those words mean, and to a degree, you're right. I frightened all my school counselors to the point they refused to treat me. The last one, she said, and I'm quoting here, she said "The trouble with psychopaths is that you don't have the emotions to understand the impact of what you're doing, but you fake them so well you end up believing your own lies."_

_John Watson is mine, Mycroft. My very own to do with what I please. He's my lover and my husband, and Sherlock gets neither of those. If I could keep John from him, I would._

Mary pondered the last sentence, then scratched it out until it was nothing but a black splotch on the page.

_As you well know, John has a mind of his own and is determined to do his best by Sherlock. I can understand that, I like Sherlock too. Not to the same degree, of course, but I love the enemy of my enemy, and I think he might even love me, at least in defence of our mutual interest. Do you wonder how that came about? I certainly do. I can't imagine Sherlock has ever been anything but a challenge. I'm sure you'll laugh when you read this. Does it feel good, knowing that there's someone out there who sees your little brother for who he is, just as I do?_

_Take care of my children, Mycroft. Tell my grandparents whatever you like. Tell them I was killed in action, that I was a hero, that I was serving my country. Tell them I left a legacy for the kids. Lie, and tell them how much I loved them and missed them and how I wished I could have come home and gotten to know them better. I've left all the details of my holdings and accounts, where and how much. There's a little house, on Lemnos. And another in Dugi Otok, on the Adriatic coast. An apartment in New York. Nothing fancy, mind, they won't be looking over Central Park. There's a storage unit, too, packed with things I picked up along the way that I thought they might like._

_I bet you're surprised. Bet you'd never think I'd admit to having two children. One boy, one girl. Knew I couldn't keep them before they were even born. I called them Annie and Elliot, but I don't know what their names are now, and the last time I was home, Gramps wouldn't let me in the house._

_Do you know, I've never told anyone that? Even John assumed I didn't have kids, and my body doesn't show the telltale marks many women get. I consider that lucky, given my line of work._

_Tell them I'm sorry._

Mary looked over what she had written and tried to make herself satisfied with the words on the page. Maybe she and John could make a trip back over. She could finagle some reason to visit Minnesota, drag him over to Bemidji and show him Babe and Paul Bunyan, spend some time in the Twin Cities. Go up to Canada, go to Calgary oh god now she was just grasping at straws. Calgary, for god's sake.And yet. Do all that and see Annie and Elliot from afar. They wouldn't recognise her, probably. Not unless Gramps had had a change of heart. It had been years....it was possible.

With a sigh, Mary too a sip of tea, hastily swallowed. Jesus, still too hot. Next time she took a sip it would undoubtedly be too cold. There was really nothing more for her to say. She folded up the letter and put it in its envelope, put that inside a padded mailer and addressed it to her contact. It would make its way to Whitehall and Mycroft. Safest that way. Best to keep this most personal of letters all professional.

Deed done for the day, Mary relaxed. She had hours yet before John came home. They were going out for cocktails and perhaps dinner with one of his old Army mates - for a brief moment she entertained the idea of him going for dinner with some of her workmates - then back home for a bit of telly and then bed. It was nice, in a very domestic kind of way. She had gotten everything she ever wanted, more or less, though throwing herself whole-heartedly into this domestic bliss had not been quite the bliss she had been expecting. Given her childhood, any environment would be better with which to raise a child, so in that respect things were good. Mostly it was just that she missed...she missed the pull and vibrancy of the old job. Although having said that, there was always Sherlock and she could insinuate herself into his cases, she'd already done so multiple times.

"Mm," she mused to herself aloud, getting up and putting her mug in the sink. Time to find something else to do before baby made its arrival and changed everything.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking about (modern) Mary since her introduction, and while many cast her in either a very negative light or a fluffy, very accepting light (both of which I enjoy, btw), for me she's fairly more complicated that that. While I like her dark/light qualities, I don't think Mofftiss ever gave her much characterization beyond the most minimum. I think Amanda put in a hell of a lot of work with the most scant of outlines, so here's my brief interpretation of the whys and wherefores of what she has done.
> 
> And yes, I did write Mary very differently for Mommae, but, y'know, that's how I roll. ;)


End file.
